Making “Memories”

I thought it might be fun this morning to get up and make a homemade breakfast for the kids (because, as documented before, my kids love breakfast foods). I remember my mom and grandmothers making breakfast, the smell of bacon and biscuits filling the house. In my memory, I see them in their serene, cool, dawn-lit kitchens as they seem to float effortlessly across the space, measuring and whisking and kneading with the greatest of skill, not a recipe in sight, for these lovingly-made meals were born more of the heart than of some formula. Bluebirds perch on the windowsill, singing the sweet song of a new day, and the feasts, which included the fluffiest biscuits I’ve ever seen, have become etched in memory as some of the most wonderful events I have ever had the privilege to take part in.

Which is why I’m a bit flummoxed as my experience this morning included a lot of rummaging through drawers and cabinets, searching, often in vain, for ingredients and implements, of squinting at my laptop trying to follow a random recipe, of stumbling into kids who wanted to “help,” all accompanied not by the sweet songs of woodland birds but by the piercing voices of my “helpers” arguing over who got to roll the dough and who got to stand closest to the bowl and who got to choose what they watched on Netflix, all of them to the person refusing to listen when I tell them it’s not time to add an ingredient.

But, not to worry. It all culminated in the joy of seeing my kids taste the biscuits and hearing them say, “I don’t like these.”

It’s the little things.

A (likely politically incorrect) retro rendering of how my mom and grandparents appear in my memory, as they were lovingly making a feast for their family. She’s no doubt smiling at the bluebirds and other creatures who are serenading her work.